2004 Ford F150 Truck with New Body Style 4 Wheel Drive Front 8 Piece Steering & Suspension Kit TRQ PSA65014

Okay friends, to get started on this job, the first thing that we need to talk about is safety. You want hand protection and eye protection at all times. With that said, safely raise and support your vehicle so you have your front wheel off the ground. We're gonna remove this center cover and then we're gonna remove the lug nuts as well.

Get your wheel off of here. We need to get this cotter pin off of the outer tie rod end now, and we'll need to get the nut off of there. Use your 21-millimeter socket and remove your nut. I just put this back on there, just a couple threads because now we're gonna use our hammer, and we're gonna hit right along here on the knuckle, being careful not to damage the tie rod. Let's get this off of there. Pull this down.

Next, we need to get the mounting nuts off of the top of the strut area here. There's gonna be three of them. There's gonna be two right here where you can see, and the other one is gonna be located further in. You definitely don't wanna touch this center nut in any way. So I'm just gonna use my 15-millimeter wrench, because it's the easiest thing to get into this space. Put it right up on here, and then, of course, a nice rubber mallet, because I don't want to damage my tool.

I'll get this nice and loose. Do the same to the other two, and then we'll remove the nuts fully. As you can see the inward nut is much easier to get from inside the engine compartment. Let's get this one right off of here. We're gonna leave one of the nuts on here just a few good threads. That way there, there's no chance that this strut can fall out. Moving down the strut, if you were to look, you're gonna see a big old bolt with a nut. Using your 30-millimeter socket, you're going to go right here and remove this nut. And I'm gonna hold the bolt head with some pliers. Now, I'm just gonna drive this bolt out of here.

Next, we're gonna use a nice long pry bar, and we're gonna come right under here. Go ahead and pry and you should see it want to separate. We'll pull it away from the control arm. You can see our safety nut did its job. Remove that nut, and remove your strut unit. The next step is to take off our upper ball joint nut. Take that nut, and just put it back on there a few good threads.

Next, we're gonna use a hammer and hit directly on the knuckle right here. That's gonna shake this free, and you're gonna notice that these two are gonna separate. Pull down on this. Remove the nut. Now as this comes up, your knuckle is gonna wanna fall away. Obviously, you don't want to let it continue to fall, because you could put a tug on your ABS wire or even your brake hose. If you have something as simple as a coat hanger or maybe even one of these bungee cords, it's gonna come in handy.

Next, what we need to do is remove the bolt that comes through from the inside of the strut tower to the outside. I'm gonna hold this nut with a 21-millimeter wrench, and then I'm gonna remove the bolt side. Do the same to the other one real quick, right off of there. Grab onto that upper control arm, and get it right out of here. Now you wanna inspect your bolts. You wanna make sure they're in great condition. If they're rusted, or rotted, or they seem like they're weak in any way, of course, you're gonna wanna replace them. Also, take a peek at your threaded area. If it looks like it's rotted and the bolts or the nut isn't gonna be able to hold on like it should, obviously, try to clean it up, and replace them if need be. These actually look pretty good. I can clean them up a little bit. But, nevertheless, what I'm also gonna do is I'm gonna add a little bit of copper Never-Seez along this area where the bolts are gonna be going through the upper control arm bushings.

Okay, now it's gonna be time to get our upper control arm in here. Let's go ahead and slide it right in. And we remember the bolts go from the inside, and they're gonna go facing out. So go ahead and line up the bolt holes, slide the bolts through, and then, of course, we'll start the nuts, we'll snug them up, and then we'll torque them to manufacturer's specifications.

Now that we have the bolts in there, it's gonna be time to get the nuts on. Something that I want to mention real quick is your nuts are supposed to have a neoprene layer inside there that works as a lock. If you're gonna be reusing your nuts for any reason, maybe you haven't gotten new ones, that's okay. I would just use a tiny bit of thread locker, but we'll call it your prerogative. Let's go ahead and start these.

The next thing we need to do before we go ahead and snug these up is we need to make sure the control arm's sitting so it's pretty much parallel to the ground. So this flat area right here is gonna be parallel. I like to use a nice pry bar. I'll come through this slot right here, and just get it as close as possible. Obviously, if it's a little too high or it's a little too low, it isn't gonna be too big of a deal. But if you tighten it while it's hanging like this, and I try to stretch this, it's gonna cause an issue with the bushings, and eventually wear them out very quickly over time. Let's go ahead and bottom this out. Same to the rearward bolt.

All right, so now we're gonna go ahead and torque these down to 114 foot-pounds. I'd like to note that usually when I'm using a torque wrench, I try to torque the nut side. I'll hold the bolt side and I'll torque the nut side. As you can tell, there isn't very much space here so I'm gonna go the opposite. I'm gonna torque this side. Let's get this untied. And I'm gonna start our upper ball joint nut on here. Just pull this down. Start the nut on there. If you're having a hard time pulling this down, you could just put your pry bar up across here, and then, of course, go into the slot we used earlier. Let's snug this up. Now let's torque this to 85 foot-pounds.

Now it's gonna be time to get the strut up in here. If you were to look, you can see the area that the strut holes are gonna be. So just line that up. Put this right up in here. There we are. Now I'm just gonna start on all three of those nuts real quick. I like to use a little thread locker on those. If it looks like this needs to be twisted a little bit, you can use a long screwdriver or pry bar. Just come right through the bolt hole, and then you can twist it as needed. Once you think it looks pretty good, I'm just gonna take my pry bar, and then I'm gonna push, and lift at the same time. Okay? This is working its way right in there nicely.

Now we need to grab our bolts because we want to have it ready so once we have this lined up, we can go ahead and put it right through. Before we go too much further, we need to make sure we inspect our bolt, clean it, and, of course, make sure the threads are nice and clean and safe. Once we've done that, we'll add a little bit of thread locker, and we'll continue. So I got the bolt cleaned up. You'll notice I put on my thread locker like I said I would, and I also put a little bit of copper Never-Seez on the shanked area here. I wanted to make sure I didn't get any Never-Seez on the threaded area though. With that said, let's get this lined up, and get the bolt in. There we are. Let's get the nut on there. Now we're gonna go ahead and bottom this out, and then we'll torque it down.

So next, we're gonna have to torque this nut to 351 foot-pounds, which just to let you know, is a lot. Most torque wrenches don't necessarily go up that high. A lot of them only go up to 250. Torque it as high as you can. Just keep in mind the torque should be 351. That's torqued. Let's get our tie rod end back in here. Now it's gonna be time to get the nut on here. Just make sure if you've got a locking end, that's facing up. Bottom it out. Torque this to 111 foot-pounds. Torqued. Now, we're just gonna bottom out these strut nuts.

So now we're just gonna torque down these nuts. Something to think about though is before you torque them, you need to either have your wheel on and the wheel on the ground with the weight of the vehicle, or you can use a jack stand, but you need to have the weight of the vehicle forcing down on the strut. Now it's time to get our wheel back up on here. Start on all of our lug nuts, bottom them out, and then we're gonna torque them to 150 foot-pounds.

Next you need to get your vehicle so the tire is just barely on the ground so it can't spin. We're gonna torque the lug nuts, like I said, to 150 foot-pounds in a star pattern. Once you've torqued it, make sure you put back on your center cover, of course.